Swann believes all the criticisms surrounding England’s inability to play spin will stop if they manage to pull off a series win against India

England off-spinner Graeme Swann has admitted that whether his team-mates like it or not, scoring runs against India’s spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha will continue to be the national team’s biggest challenge throughout the rest of the Test series.

Ashwin and Ojha have been responsible for a majority of England’s wickets and it comes as no big surprise to anybody since England struggled to handle Pakistan’s spin duo of Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman and Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath and Suraj Randiv earlier this year.

Writing in his column for The Sun, Swann said: “I am now totally focused after flying home because our little baby was unwell. I had sleep flying back to India and any jet-lag has gone. I’m fresh and the ball has been coming out well in practice, I am now concentrating on the Test. I love it when I know I’ll have a lot of work to do. The conditions will be hot, the pitches dry and spin will be a big factor in the four-Test series.”

Swann knows that this series is extremely important for England since it is their first Test tour after losing their world number one Test team title to South Africa over the summer.

“I genuinely believe we can win but we must play better against spin than we did in the three Tests against Pakistan earlier this year,” Swann said. “We need to get back to playing the same brand of smart, aggressive cricket we did when winning The Ashes a couple of winters ago, spin was undoubtedly our downfall in the UAE but we saw in the Second Test of the subsequent series in Sri Lanka that we had a different approach to facing slow bowling. That will be carried forward to this tour.

“We have some of the most destructive batsmen in the world who go out and play with a free spirit and dominate bowlers.”